When scheduling my week, I like to be prepared. I arrange my weeks ahead of time so that I have everything ready or close to ready prior to starting each day.
How do I set up my sessions throughout the school week?
All my students work through Math, Reading Comprehension, Language, Science, Social Studies etc.
We also include Social Topics and Life Skills.
Since I use alot of curriculum from TAH, my life is so much more organized!!
Once I do my pretests, I am able to get a clearer understanding of where they are all at in terms of skills. I will also use the ABLLS-R to determine specific Language skills that I feel are extremely important in teaching communication.
I did spend money out of my pocket however I felt that is was easier to print up the books necessary for my kiddos that they could work on throughout the school year. Example: I printed up 2 copies of Level 2 Math, 1 copy of level 1 Math, 1 copy of level 3 etc….
I did this with each book that I knew I would use. I took the initial assessment sheet and printed this up and placed into an assessment binder. All of the kids I work are in one binder so everything is together.
I ensure to pretest all students on the level they are on and keep everyone as structured as possible. Example: if I have 6 students and I have broken them down into the 3 different levels, they all work on the levels that fit the needs of the student but they all do the same amount of sheets per day.
Example: Lets’ look at Functional Math Unit 4 from TAH
Students 1 and 2 are on level 1 math (see here)
Students 3 and 4 are on level 2 math
Students 5 and 6 are on level 3 math
I started all of them on Unit 4 (example), pg 1 and 2.
On Tuesday they are on Unit 1 page 3 and 4.
It takes approximately 2 weeks to finish a unit (I then do a post test).
I teach all of my students to the best of my ability, then I split the groups up and work with each individual group using hands on teaching before to ensure my students understand the skills. I set up IAS bins (independent activity systems) that my students can work on and I have an IPAD station for the students to work on as well.
I like to spend a lot of time encouraging communication amongst my students. We work a lot on 'WH'questions.
The students love being
challenged in games and this was a great way for me to teach my students to
respond to questions. Each student is able to hit the buzzer when they know the answer to the question.
Lastly, All of my
students work for weekly reinforcements. Before Covid, we would go to get a
treat such as ice cream, now we make our own things. It helps that we have a small kitchen. You just need to think a bit outside of the box.
